Chinese forge results to gain UK visas

HUNDREDS of Chinese students are securing places at British universities and colleges, using fake qualifications costing £4,000 each.

An investigation by the Chinese police has exposed an extensive fraud racket in Beijing, where GCSEs, A-levels, and other British qualifications including Tefl (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificates are widely available and students are coached to answer the "simple" questions asked by visa officials.

Many of the certificates on sale are legitimately obtained by Chinese students who then sell them on for up to £4,000 a time. In other cases, Chinese students make money by sitting exams for anyone who wants to come to Britain.

Institutions being targeted by students armed with bogus certificates, according to the Beijing authorities, include the University of Warwick, Bournemouth University and the University of Luton.

The number of Chinese citizens entering Britain on student visas will soar to 16,000 this coming academic year, up from 2,500 just three years ago. The most popular colleges report that they are inundated with applications as China has recently relaxed restrictions on its students leaving the country and has now replaced the United States as the leading source of foreign students in this country. Every university in Britain now has at least 60 Chinese students.

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There are more than 300 agents in Beijing advertising their services to help students enter Britain. Only 46 are officially registered. Some are legitimate and play by the rules; many do not. In Haidian, the student district of the Chinese capital, companies such as Ziming Cultural Exchange are thronged with students looking for help to get overseas.

Last week, The Telegraph saw a manager of Ziming assure a 29-year-old Beijing woman that her lack of English was no barrier to being accepted on an MBA programme in England. The manager said: "This is no problem. We can work with you on this. We will teach you a little English for your interview for a visa and provide you with a certificate saying your standard is high."

The staff said that British visa officers ask just five "simple, very simple" questions in English. Applicants are helped to back up their bid with bogus degrees from top-flight Chinese universities while the growing field of British MBA courses is flooded with applicants whose scores are boosted with illicit assistance.

One senior British university administrator said the Chinese would probably target former polytechnics which did not have the resources to check out applicants thoroughly. Tim Gutfell, the director of international relations at the University of Luton, said that his establishment has a high number of Chinese students.

He said: "We are attractive to Chinese students because Luton has a large Chinese population, we are close to London and we have relatively low tuition fees. All these positive reasons to apply would also make us attractive to bogus applicants." Because of this danger, he said, the university went to great lengths to spot fake applications, including interviewing every prospective student in China.

Peter Dunn, of the University of Warwick, said that his institution expected Chinese students to have completed a year at a recognised university in that country before coming to Britain. Anya Luscombe, of Bournemouth University, said that the authorities there were always aware of possible fraud and would investigate any new claims.